Love's Labour Lost
by roulette rouge
Summary: He couldn't have her, and not because it was forbidden, not because it could never be. It was the guilt that separated heart from mind, logic from emotion...the guilt of what he had done, what he had lost, what he would never have again. Movie!Kataang.


A/N: Hey guys! Long time no post, huh? Well, I'm back. Hopefully this doesn't suck majorly, but it's my first attempt in like, what, a year? Well, anyway, I'll edit this stuff later. In the meantime, enjoy!

This is Movie!Kataang, by the way, the way it _**should **_have been!

_I don't own Aang, Katara, Sokka, Momo or Appa. I only wish I did!_

_

* * *

_

_Love is not the parade of rose petals that it is always told to be. There is more to this feeling, Aang, than the physical things in this world because it is not a **physical **emotion._

_To be seen by others, **you **must show it._

_To be felt by others, **you **must feel it._

_And Aang, whatever you do, no matter what they tell you…**never **ignore it._

_

* * *

_

The last time he had the dream, the moon was full. He didn't know why he had it, but there it was, plain as the night above his head and beyond his line of sight. The trees splayed their flourished green limbs over their campsite and the wind, which was hushed before, had become restless in the hours after they'd all fallen asleep. In its careless frolicking, it had put out their fire. Everything was dark save for the moon-stained freckles which embellished the face of the earth.

He sat up. Beside him, on his right, was Sokka, who was snoring quite loudly, but his sleeping bag was a wrinkled mess as it sprawled half over him and the other half had crawled over to Aang, as if to seek his protection. A few footsteps away from the cold embers and tousled dreamers, Appa rested beneath the mottled starlight, and Momo was tucked away into the miles and miles of Appa's warm, inviting fur.

Katara, on the other hand, always seemed to sleep peacefully, _quietly_. Her hair was tucked away for the night in an untidy plait and her side seemed to move like the tide.._.in and out, inhale, exhale…_and Aang found himself breathing with her as he watched the mechanics of her living, functioning being, kneeling in her calming waves of her radiating warmth.

She was there to be his guiding light, sent to him by the very spirits who had locked him away in a sphere of ice for a hundred years, and that was what he couldn't comprehend. _Why _had she found him…_why _was he even here when his people were gone, and he, the last airbender, still lived on? The living relic of their genocide.

But no matter how much he wanted to follow it and find his way out of the storm, everything he had ever learned and everything he had ever known came and pulled him under the surface again. And he was drowning…out of her reach. He knew she noticed, as he'd come to learn that nothing, no _nothing, _ever escaped Katara's infallible scrutiny. There would be no escaping her, once she confronted him on the matter.

All he could do was stall. Gather time for himself and hoard it away for later. Always later, because responsibility was too _scary, _too heavy, and the weight always made him feel like he was suffocating. He didn't want to admit to himself, to the memory of his people, that he had defied their teachings of duty before love, fate before desire, and had fallen in _love _before he had finished his obligation as the Avatar. He couldn't have her, and not because it was forbidden, not because it could never be. It was the guilt that separated heart from mind, logic from emotion…the guilt of what he had done, what he had lost, and what he would never have again.

A shiver passed through him, a vein of quicksilver in an otherwise dormant mine. Aang felt as if he was being excavated, his every secret and wish and dark desire exhumed from where they were supposed to stay hidden away forever, never to be seen, and he suddenly felt naked and cold. His past was haunting him, he saw traces of its wraithlike spirit within the footsteps he left behind, trailing like smoke through every word he spoke and every thought that crossed his mind. There was no escaping them…he would have to face the blame that was his, and _only _his, for their death. Someday. Maybe later. Always _later_.

He would find no more sleep that night and perhaps not even the next. If he had the presence of mind to be honest with himself and with Katara, he'd realize just how little rest he was actually getting lately. The nights had simply begun to weave together, one big jumbled design of dreams that didn't make sense and shame that gnawed at the last strings of his resolve.

He was falling apart, little by little, until the reflection of the boy who loved to play and laugh and dream as far beyond his reach as was possible for such a small creature…was just as much his past incarnation as Roku, as his life at the temple, when he was young and free. Now, he was an old soul stuck in the shell of a well-preserved body...and tired. Too tired to carry on, but he had to, just...had to, if not for the sake of the world, then for Sokka...for Katara.

All that was left was his basest form. Something like a half-life, but a little more, as he still dreamed much too far past the stars and the moon until the cruelty of reality was far behind him.

His blanket slid off him and pooled at his feet and he started to walk. Where he was going, he wasn't sure, and neither did he care. He just wanted to get away from everything that reminded him of what he would have to do in the not-too-distant future that they were always talking about. The Firelord, the balance of the world and the people in it, and the peace that they expected him to restore…it all turned into one big run-on sentence that he couldn't follow. Not that he wanted to.

All he wanted, in that moment, that one instant, was to walk underneath the canopy of trees that shielded him from the glare of the moon and the mockery of the stars.

He was safe here, safe from his fear of responsibility and guilt and the future…

Safe from Katara, his biggest fear of all.

* * *

_It was dark. _

_So dark that he felt as if it would swallow him, but as he turned he saw there was a light outside his window. _

Go, Aang…go toward the light, _came Gyatso's voice in his ear, and his feet began to move, his legs cutting through the thick blanket of oblivion which covered him._

_It tried…tried to pull him back into its snare with every step that brought him closer to that blue-tinged light, but his desire to reach it was stronger than the impenetrable gloom. _

_On and on and on, the maze lead him into circles that made his head spin and his heart pound with dread…_

You won't make it, Aang…you're going to die in here, die at the hands of the very darkness you are trying to conquer for the good of the world…nothing can save you. You should give in, let it have you.

And then, Aang...only then can you really be powerful...forget everything that haunts you. Let go...let it all go and give in...you'll never get out, so why don't you just...stay in?

_But still he pressed on, ignoring the temptation, the exhaustion, the pain of loss and regret, and the light grew closer until it was just one last corner away from his reach._

_

* * *

_

The symptoms were all clear. The pounding of his heart as it tried, tried so hard to escape the claustrophobic cage of his chest, but it failed, failed as he knew it would. His lungs were caught in a vice grip and he felt as though he might be sick, the sensation of having no air to breathe and nothing to relieve the ache for oxygen emptying him of all wish to escape.

He closed his eyes; she was there. Standing behind him, her hair falling and tumbling in its enthusiasm to be free over her thin, russet shoulders. Her eyes were the sky, stars of his guiding light, and their color was the envy of the deepest, bluest ocean. He could envision her standing there, her hands clasped in front of her, and she would look worried. In his dreams, she would look love-struck, glowing with affection for him. But those were just dreams…forbidden hopes, never to be fulfilled.

"Aang," she said, and her voice was but a murmur. A quiet wave against the sleeping sand. "Look at me, please."

He opened his eyes and took a strangled breath in through his nose, the shudder unmistakable as it coursed through him; he obeyed. It was pathetic, to fear and distance her, his safe haven, his one light in a night-infested sea and he knew the fathoms of his disgrace knew no bounds. It would reach on for forever if he let it…but only if he let it…only if.

Then he saw it, the very picture he had kept in his mind of her, how he would remember her if they parted ways and never saw each other again. The touch of sadness in her expression which was only the beginning of layers upon layers of regret and anger and the same fear he harbored for the same world in which they lived. A new layer, the one he was most familiar with, was added upon the callused surface – concern.

She drifted forward, ever the all-encompassing figure of love, and gathered him into her arms. Aang could not resist the warmth of her embrace and he melted, reshaping himself to fit into her. To feel as if he belonged there, though his own regrets and reluctance stayed him. "You're not sleeping." The words vibrated in the hollow of her chest. He felt them dance against his cheek. "Tell me what it is. Tell me what's bothering you.."

"Katara-"

"_No, _I won't leave it alone. You're suffering and I can't stand to see you this way anymore." There was no pity in her voice, only fury. "Tell me, Aang. Tell me and I'll help you."

* * *

_There it was, the light. He stood before it, and for a moment he was blinded by it, until he lowered his hand from his face and opened his eyes._

_ And no longer was it merely formless, a fragment of celestial radiance, but a tangible being. It was her, and he couldn't mistake her for anything else. _

_A million voices. They all came at him, wielding their insults and their half-truths like weapons of war._

How could you, Aang…your betrayal knows no bounds…you have failed us, Avatar, there is no going back…remember your teachings…the Avatar must complete his duties before he may give himself over to mortal love…you have work to do…Aang, you must not forget…never forget us…

Aang_, she called to him, and the sound of her desperation drowned out their insistent whispers, backdrop noises that haunted the corridors of his restless mind._

_ Her voice was far away, but if he ran fast enough, he could catch it. _

_He could catch her. He __**would.**_

Katara! Katara, wait!

_She slipped further away._

_

* * *

_

He tore himself out of her gentle grip, recounting the dream in its full vitality. No detail was forgotten, no image spared. It was as if he saw it before him, an apparition dredged up from the doldrums of his very being, his soul.

No matter how much he wanted her, how much he wished to disregard his past, he couldn't let himself have her. He couldn't forget.

"It was that dream again, wasn't it?" She ventured softly, and he could hear her bare feet against the damp earth. "The one you keep having. Won't you tell me about it?"

The voices were the most vivid recollection. Like they were screaming and the echoes throttled his bones, bounced off the empty places in his stomach and ricocheted throughout his entire body. There was no ignoring them because they were right…

He fixated on a ripple, one lonely little wave, that shattered the placid surface of the lake before him. "There's nothing to tell."

* * *

Katara, don't go. Don't leave me here…he'll find me. He'll catch me…please don't go!

_But she didn't listen. She couldn't stay. Her body was disappearing as he ran toward her, faster and faster, but he seemed to go nowhere._

Katara wait!

_He outstretched his hand to catch hers, but found only darkness. She was gone._

_

* * *

_

"Aang, I know you want to tell me something," she said softly, putting her hand on his shoulder. "I can feel it. Please, tell me. I want you to trust me."

* * *

_The laughter, the maniacal cackle that rooted itself in the surrounding void. Fire spread across the vacuum that his haven had become. He tried to escape, but there was nowhere to run, nowhere to go as the flames encircled him._

_

* * *

_

He turned to her, his face washed pale by the moonlight, concealing the ashen mask of his horror. "I can't."

* * *

_And the face._

_It rose from the choking black smoke, the vibrant orange and red and yellow that tore up the blackness and left it to bleed…stars fell out of the holes it left behind._

_And the moon and the earth, flickers of a memory of what once was, reflected upon the surface of the converging gore. _

_Then came the bodies. The faceless thousands upon thousands that ascended, bubbled up from the netherworld beneath his feet, until the number grew...and it grew...and he realized it would never stop. _

_It would never end.  
_

_

* * *

_

"But why?" she insisted, searching his eyes for the answer she wanted, the one she wouldn't live without, but couldn't find. "_Why _can't you open up to me? Sokka and I, we've shown you nothing but loyalty and affection and I promise we will _never _betray or hurt or abandon you. You're a part of us now, a part of our _family_, and we _love _you. We love you with everything we have, every fiber of our being. So why….why do you distance yourself from us_, _Aang_?"_

_

* * *

_

_It never slowed. They kept shooting up like saplings from the burning ground, and the malicious face of the firelord smiled down upon the unraveling scene, his progeny of destruction._

_ And Aang watched, with detached horror, as the lifeless body of Katara surfaced before him. Her eyes, the color of the deepest sea, of the bluest sky, no longer held their quiet warmth, were no longer blue at all...just black and cold and empty of everything that she had been before...when she had been alive._

No, _he cried, falling to his knees before her. _No, no, no!

_Her blood covered him, the waters of her comfort run dry. He could feel her life pulsating, feel it beg for mercy as it spread across his clothes and soaked them through like a blooming flower, but there was nothing he could do now.  
_

_ He should have saved her, it had been possible. _

_She had been right there, just beyond his reach, if only he had tried harder. Ran faster. Conquered the void and brought her back to him, demanding that she stayed. She would have, if only he'd asked...she would have._

At least you didn't leave me, Katara…_he sobbed into her hair, tangling his fingers in the endless waves as his tears stained them. _You never left…you never left…

* * *

**Because I love you, Katara. **

He would never say it, but he could imagine it. Imagine what would've been if he had.

"It's nothing, really," he tried a smile. The falseness of its pretense made him ache. "Nothing at all. Don't worry about me…I'll be okay. I'll be just fine."

And he left her at the shoreline…

Left all of her behind.

* * *

_ copyright of St. Valentine, 2010._

_Characters belong to the Avatar: The Last Airbender franchise and their creators.  
_


End file.
